Next-generation home networking: It's all about cable companies and the set-top box

Are consumers ready for the next-generation home network that will transform how all of us will interact with our home entertainment systems, as well as our home's security, energy, health monitoring and environmental systems?

Many technology watchers have predicted the arrival of the automated smart home - that home owners will seek out and install the latest, coolest gizmos that will make a house truly smart. Well, it ain't gonna happen that way.

Instead, powered by ZigBee RF4CE - a low-power, low-data-rate version of Wi-Fi, this new network is the choice of the world's cable companies and service providers as the way to introduce new services and applications to the home. Cable companies have realized that is not enough to provide high-quality video and web connectivity. If they want to engage their customers and keep them as subscribers in a web connected world, they already have the total infrastructure in place to provide a wide range of other services.

RF4CE powered set-top boxes and remote controls can provide the central control point for all the home's entertainment, automation and smart applications.

It is the cable companies of the world who are launching the new smart homes centered around the ubiquitous set-top box - not the TV makers, not the home after market or security device providers.

At CES 2012, Comcast, one of the largest service providers in the world said it is moving to ZigBee RF4CE with their new Xfinity set-top boxes and remotes.

"We are moving to support ZigBee RF4CE standards-based remote controls and set-tops because they improve the user experience for navigating all our services in the home, while allowing us to make the transition to RF technology in a very cost effective way," said Ted Grauch, Vice President, Video Premise Equipment for Comcast.

Comcast is not alone. Every other service provider in the world is also testing and planning on moving to RF4CE for their set-top boxes and remotes. In addition, several of the world's leading consumer electronics and home entertainment manufacturers are planning on using RF4CE. In Japan, Sony is already using RF4CE in their televisions and remote controls to enable viewers to easily purchase items they see on their TVs.

Within a few years, maybe five, how everyone communicates with their home entertainment and monitoring/control systems will change.

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Cable companies are the last place I want to buy more services from. They are only adequate at handling the tv and internet service I currently buy and they charge an arm and leg for that. They still have not delivered the range of choice we where promised oh so many years ago. Here in Canada the service providers have become content providers as well so now they are trying to find some way to throttle my internet so as to control my consumption. Believe it or not I am not particularly upset with my cable company since they are just doing the same kind of business as usual like they have for the last 20 years.

If the home networks and asociated communications systems are properly implemented then there is a lot of scope to reduce the local elctronics content in each home appliance. Currently each of the home appliance - the fridge, the microwave, the TV, the washing machine - has its own embedded micro controller. With a centralised service this could be simplified.